The digital strategy is dead, long live the digital business strategy

TV

5 March 2015by Tom Voirol

Many organisations are in the mindset where they still see digital as a cost factor of the IT function. Some of the more digitally mature businesses and government entities have developed a digital strategy, however they still only view digital as little more than a tactical channel in the marketing mix.

Truly digital organisations have abandoned the digital strategy in favour of a business strategy that is digital at heart. For these entities, digital is not something they do, it's how they do things, and the most advanced among them reap the immediate rewards of an improved bottom line as well as setting themselves up for success in the current markets and with the customers of tomorrow.

So how do businesses become digital at the core?

Digital readiness means integrating digital tools and methods to the three
key pillars of business. Each pillar encompasses four focus areas of digital readiness:

Digital Business — Your organisation and its operations

Strategy — Does your business strategy recognise the new digital realities of the world it operates in?

Leadership — How digitally savvy is your C-suite? Are they committed to make your business digital at the core?

Structure — Are you organised around historically grown silos? Do the boundaries between them hamper the free flow of information and digital content?

Processes — Do you internally operate at the speed of digital, or are your processes stuck in the pre-digital world?

Digital Market — Your products and services, their consumers and the market at large

Products — Are your products and services digitally enabled? Do you deliver what a digital market demands?

Customers — How digitally demanding are your customers?

Partners — Even if you run a smooth digital operation, your partners and suppliers can introduce speed humps and roadblocks